5.  The applicant was born in 1957 and lives in Hîrbovăţ.
6.  The applicant is the president of the non-governmental organisation Dumitriţa, which specialises in providing assistance to people in need. She suffers from epilepsy with organic personality changes and low frequency tonic epileptic fits. She was treated on an in-patient basis in the Clinical Psychiatric Hospital during the period 22 May to 12 June 2006.
7.  On 27 July 2006 the applicant was summoned to appear before an investigator of the Centre for Fighting Economic Crime and Corruption (“the CFECC”). When she appeared, she was arrested on suspicion of having misappropriated funds donated by a Swedish charity to her organisation for distribution to persons in need. The applicant was placed in the CFECC detention centre.
8.  The applicant informed the investigator of her illness and told him that she needed to regularly take medication prescribed for her by her psychiatrist. The officer allegedly replied that detainees were not allowed to have any medication in their possession.
9.  According to the applicant, on being taken to her cell she had an epileptic fit and an ambulance was called to give her emergency assistance. She was then placed in an unventilated cell with another woman, who smoked continually. The applicant does not smoke and was thus exposed to passive smoking, which exacerbated her epilepsy problems.
10.  On 29 July 2006 the investigator asked the investigating judge to issue a warrant for the applicant's arrest. On the same date Judge Drosu, the investigating judge of the Buiucani District Court, rejected the request, finding it unsubstantiated. The judge noted that the applicant had pleaded not guilty and that the investigator had not proved there was an absolute need to detain the applicant. There was no evidence that she might abscond, put pressure on witnesses or interfere with the course of the investigation. Moreover, the judge took into account the criteria of Article 176 § 3 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which had been invoked by the applicant's lawyer, namely, that the applicant “had a stable residence and a job, was of an advanced age and not in good health, and did not have a criminal record”.
11.  Immediately after the hearing of 29 July 2006, the prosecutor informed the applicant that a provisional measure requiring her not to leave her village for thirty days had been imposed.
12.  In reply to a request by the prosecutor of 28 July 2006, on 31 July 2006 the Clinical Psychiatric Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Social Protection (“the CPH”) confirmed that the applicant had been treated for epilepsy in the hospital during the period 22 May to 12 June 2006. The CPH added that urgent medical assistance could be provided to the applicant by calling an ambulance and that she was eligible to receive free medication on the basis of a prescription issued by her local psychiatrist.
13.  On 1 August 2006 the prosecutor appealed against the decision of the investigating judge. He noted that the criminal case had been initiated on 16 June 2006 and that the evidence obtained so far, including an audit of the non-governmental organisation's activities, attested to a misappropriation of funds (amounting to 950,970 Moldovan lei (MDL) or 55,957 euros (EUR) at the time). As the director of Dumitriţa, the applicant was directly responsible for the manner in which the money and items had been used. Since many of the persons receiving aid from the applicant's organisation were elderly and poor, they could easily be influenced by the applicant, who was accused of a serious crime punishable by ten to twenty-five years' imprisonment. Moreover, the applicant might interfere with the course of the investigation, as was clear from her “not guilty” plea and her claim that the Swedish organisation was simply punishing her for her organisation's refusal to participate in a bigger project.
14.  On 7 August 2006 the Chişinău Court of Appeal quashed the investigating judge's decision of 29 July 2006 and ordered the applicant's detention for ten days. The court found as follows:
“[I]n examining the request for a preventive measure of detention the [lower] court did not take into account the seriousness of the crime which [the applicant] is suspected of having committed, and adopted a premature and unsubstantiated decision. [The applicant] is suspected of having committed an exceptionally serious crime which is punishable by more than two years' imprisonment, and she may abscond, interfere with the course of the investigation or commit other crimes.”
15.  According to the applicant, she was not summoned to the hearing of 7 August 2006 and did not attend it, although her lawyer did attend. The decision of 7 August 2006 mentioned that the applicant had participated in the hearing.
16.  The applicant was arrested shortly thereafter at her house, on the basis of an arrest warrant of the same date issued by the Chişinău Court of Appeal. The warrant stated as follows:
“[The applicant] is suspected of having committed a crime punishable by more than two years' imprisonment, and of absconding from the law-enforcement authority and the court, and might interfere with the course of the investigation and commit other crimes”.
Also on 7 August 2006, the applicant was formally indicted for the crime.
17.  In the meantime a request by the applicant's lawyer to declare her arrest on 27 July 2006 unlawful was rejected as unfounded by the investigating judge on 3 August 2006. The judge found that although the investigator had only noted one reason as the ground for the applicant's arrest (namely, a direct indication by a witness that she had committed the crime), that ground was expressly provided for by law.
18.  On 11 August 2006 the prosecutor asked for an extension of the applicant's detention pending trial for another thirty days. The request referred to the same facts as those mentioned in the request of 1 August 2006, but mentioned in addition the Court of Appeal's decision of 7 August 2006 and the formal indictment of the same date. The applicant opposed that request, referring to her stable residence and job, as well as her health problems.
19.  On 15 August 2006 the investigating judge of the Buiucani District Court granted the request and extended the applicant's detention pending trial for another thirty days. The court noted that on 7 August 2006 the Chişinău Court of Appeal had annulled the decision of 29 July 2006 and that on 7 August 2006 the applicant had been indicted for the crime. The court added:
“[T]he grounds relied on by the Chişinău Court of Appeal for ordering [the applicant's] arrest remain valid. In such circumstances the validity of the arrest warrant shall be extended, since the reasons cited by the prosecution for extending it have priority; [the detention] will be part of the normal course of the criminal proceedings; the arguments of the defence were examined by the appellate court”.
20.  On an unknown date after 15 August 2006 the applicant's lawyer made a habeas corpus request to the investigating judge, in which he referred to the decision of 15 August 2006 and asked for his client's release on medical grounds. He informed the judge of his client's medical condition and of the inadequate medical assistance available at the CFECC, which was contrary to Article 3 of the Convention. He made a similar complaint to the Chişinău Court of Appeal in an appeal against the decision of 15 August 2006, adding that his client had had several epileptic fits after her arrest and that the CFECC could not provide the full-time specialised medical assistance she required. It appears that there was no response to any of these complaints.
21.  The applicant claims that she was summoned before the investigator on several occasions before her arrest on 27 July 2006. She and her lawyer duly appeared before the investigator each time and at no time did she abscond from the investigation. On 17 August 2006 the applicant's lawyer was informed by the Anenii Noi Post Office that no registered mail had been delivered to the applicant during the period 1 to 17 August 2006. Nor was there any evidence in the file that the applicant had in fact been summoned to appear before the Chişinău Court of Appeal on 7 August 2006. In the absence of an official summons, the applicant could not have appeared before the investigating authorities or the courts since that would have been in breach of the preventive measure imposed on her on 29 July 2006 in respect of the undertaking not to leave her village.
22.  According to the medical documents submitted by the Government, the applicant was treated by a psychiatrist (R.V.) during her detention at the CFECC. R.V. visited her twenty-four times, that is, almost every day and on three occasions twice a day. She received the treatment prescribed by that doctor, as can be seen from his notes in the medical visits register. According to the same register, on 17 August 2006 R.V. noted:
“The administration has been informed about the worsening of the patient's state of health and of the need to transfer her to a medical institution.”
On 1 September 2006 R.V. wrote in the medical visits register that the applicant was to be transferred to the hospital in Costiujeni, her condition having improved.
Later that day the applicant was transferred to the Costiujeni Clinical Psychiatric Hospital for in-patient treatment. Before her release from the CFECC she wrote a note in the medical register (dated 1 August 2006) in which she stated that she had no complaints about her treatment there and thanked the doctor for his assistance. On 20 September 2009 R.V. wrote a “medical report” in which he essentially stated that the applicant had received medical assistance appropriate to her state of health during her detention at the CFECC.
23.  According to the applicant, she had a number of epileptic fits at the time of the events described above, which occurred in the CFECC detention facility and in the prosecutor's office, the court hall and even during a court hearing. Two such fits happened in the prosecutor's office on 29 July 2006 immediately after the hearing, when her lawyer gave her emergency assistance. She also claims that she can occasionally sense the onset of a fit sufficiently far in advance to be able to take the relevant medication and thus prevent the fit from occurring. However, as she was denied access to her medication in the cell, she was not able to prevent any of her fits.